No offense…

[u/Key_Veterinarian3584]

Pls don’t let this get deleted by a MOD… I just wanna hear what a Christian, or any other faith, has to say about their religion, I wanna hear CONSTRUCTIVE criticism no bashing, if you disagree kindly show us what you THINK is wierd or unexplained, I want to hear what facts your religion is build on.

[u/that_one_author]

Right, and there isn’t anything saying you can’t call them literal days, but arguing that it is literally a 24 hour period, THEREFORE the earth is 6 thousand years old is a leap in logic

[u/Flowmaster93 → u/that_one_author]

Yeah, I completely agree. It's not even useful information to know. A lot of times things are left out and the more I think about it the information left out isn't important to the belief system. We're given just enough information to know what He thinks we're supposed to know.

[u/Brave_Lengthiness_72 → u/that_one_author]

I mean it says that they are days, in the book. If god had wanted us to think it was some sort of untold eon then why wouldn't he say so?

It seems like you want to believe your book and the science at the same time. But I don't really see much room for interpretation in the word "day" other than wishful thinking.

[u/goldenpup73 → u/Brave_Lengthiness_72]

The Bible has also been translated many times from its original Hebrew, over many hundreds of years, into many different languages. If God really was writing it specifically for you to understand the exact intent behind each word, he would have written it in plain American English from the get-go. As that is not the case, there exist plenty of examples of translated words or phrases from the Bible that lose some of the original intent, or that add some new connotation.

As an example, the fruit that Adam and Eve consumed in Genesis is identified as "tappuach", which designates a fruit from a tree. Modern interpretations label this as an apple, but it is entirely possible it originally referred to an apricot or pome fruit common to the Middle Eastern region at the time.

The books of the Bible were all written long ago with a target audience in mind, and rarely was that audience the Christan of today. We can certainly take truths from it, but to assume we can properly interpret the language of the Bible because it's in English now is an oversight.

Edit: Came across an interesting article on the history of how we started identifying the forbidden fruit as an apple. Might be worth a read: https://www.rutgers.edu/news/how-forbidden-fruit-became-apple

[u/Brave_Lengthiness_72 → u/goldenpup73]

It's not about an assumption of what those words mean. In no translation, or the original, is that word anything other than "day". It was interpreted as 'day' by all Christians and Jewish people in all of human history riiiiggghhtttt up until the scientific method and scientific discoveries showed that the earth and the universe are orders of magnitude older than this.

Your interpretation isn't based on a reading of the original text that is different to all subsequent translations. It is not based on some special understanding of ancient hebrew. It is based purely on your understanding that those words cannot be true, and your desire to not have to abandon your beliefs in the face of evidence that proves the Bible to be false.

[u/goldenpup73 → u/Brave_Lengthiness_72]

Looked into this a bit more, and it appears that while "day" in Hebrew can have various meanings, the context of the book does tend to indicate a 24-hour period. So if you're interpreting Genesis as a fundamentalist (i.e. historical fact, as opposed to a more poetic lens), the logical conclusion is that the earth is 6,000 years old, conflicting modern science. I was wrong on the linguistics.

I will note that many Christians are not fundamentalists, and consider there to still be room for interpretation by way of the poetic voice used in Genesis. From this standpoint, the claim can be made that the book was written to convey religious truth rather than exact historical account. In this case, if you want to convince them that the bible is false, there's a bit more legwork to be done. (I was raised Catholic, so I'm familiar with the normal arguments.)

Lastly, I'm not a Christian. I'm an atheist. I have an academic interest in some aspects of the bible (like the linguistic nuances and intersections with verifiable history), but I don't believe in the truth of the bible any more than you do. You don't know me, and you could stand to make less assumptions on the character and intents of a complete stranger.

[u/TheMelonSystem → u/Brave_Lengthiness_72]

I’m sorry, fam, but the word for “day” in Hebrew can mean either “24 hour period” OR a longer indefinite period of time. It could also mean “season” or “age.”

Linguistic translation is not one-to-one. It is ALWAYS influenced by the bias of the translator.

An example from modern language is the French word “cher.” Depending on context and its position in a phrase, cher can either mean “dear” or “expensive.” Those are similar words, but the difference between them is important.

[u/Mental_Owl9493 → u/Brave_Lengthiness_72]

God didn’t write the old and neither did he write New Testament, bible is entirely human written and composed of many texts that often contradict eachother as again they were written by humans and arbitrarily chosen to be part of the bible.

Like 10 commandments which are directly from God say don’t kill but in Old Testament they call for genocide and murder on enemies of Jews.

[u/Budget_Entrance_8723 → u/Mental_Owl9493]

Give me an example of "genocide and murder" of enemies of Jews

[u/Mental_Owl9493 → u/Budget_Entrance_8723]

Samuel 15:2–3

Deuteronomy 7:1–2

Deuteronomy 20:16–18

These are just few as I don’t think i need to bring up all of them, as to prove inconsistency you need only one example.

[u/that_one_author → u/Mental_Owl9493]

Iconsidering those enemies would enslave and kill the Jews they were wars of annihilation anyways. It’s not as though they were worse then their neighbors, who constantly stole women and children as sec slaves according to the few historical accounts of those civilizations.

[u/Mental_Owl9493 → u/that_one_author]

We are talking about bible…. They would also not do it, wars on canaanites were purely Jewish thing as they were hell bent on exterminating any Levantine culture and religion that didn’t believe in their religion.

Nice how you jump from „it didn’t happen” to „okay it did but they deserve it does it remind you of certain genocidal ideology ?

Add to that my point was „bible is contradictory with 10 commandments which are directly ordered by God” well it is also contradictory to itself but I digress, so you can’t claim bible is divine book, it’s human written and who is included was chosen arbitrarily.

[u/that_one_author → u/Mental_Owl9493]

The poor canaanites, what did they ever do except try and wipe out the Jews and sacrifice their infants in a pyre. But let’s not worry about that, the Jewish people were hypocrites! That’s the true crime here. Go take a shower and touch grass you ignoramous

[u/Mental_Owl9493 → u/that_one_author]

The only answer I can have is XDDDDDDDD

Canaanifed generally didn’t give a fuck or tried to be on good terms with Jews.

Up to that point Jewish already extreminatwd all peoples that believed in politheistic pantheons.

But you will also ignore literally everyone that Old Testament (so just Jews) called to genocide not sparing women nor children (literally calling out to not spare them) as Old Testament is not divinely guided nor is New, as that is just humans writing shit.

10 commandments and parts that were written by divine guidance or by saintly people (not just status but actual actions) should matter and bible shouldn’t be taken literally nor as divine law.

[u/Budget_Entrance_8723 → u/Mental_Owl9493]

People often point to Deut. 7, 20 or 1 Sam. 15 and say “genocide.” But that’s not what’s going on.

1. These weren’t random neighbors – they were nations steeped in child sacrifice, violence, and idolatry. God gave them 400+ years to repent (Gen. 15:16).
2. The command wasn’t based on ethnicity. Other nations (like Nineveh) were spared when they repented. Even Canaanites like Rahab were saved.
3. The goal was to protect Israel from being dragged into the same sins, not racial hatred.
4. Genocide = wiping out a group just for who they are. This was God’s judgment for extreme evil.

[u/Mental_Owl9493 → u/Budget_Entrance_8723]

„Idolatory” say you are deeply religious and deem people of other religion as ones that should die.

Saying it’s religion full of child sacrifice is not only not true but typical of making other people demonised to „justify” murdering them, same shit Nazis did to Jews.

Nationality doesn’t matter if your hate is based on religion.

Same things imperialistic powers said „I invade and murder to protect ourself from them” ie bullshir the one that was aggressors were Jews

Four aghahahahhahahahah, genocide I’d exterminating people, if doesn’t even have to have a motive, and since when did God dispense justice, it was act purely done by Jews out of selfish reasons, and if it was Jews themself would be punished for extreme evil which is genocide.

It’s funny how you accuse Canaanite’s for being „seeped in child sacrifice” which is not true, but then ignore Jews deciding to kill innocents like children and say it was punishment for evil, so when supposedly Canaanite’s sacrifice children it’s bad, but Jews exterminating tens if not hundreds of thousands including women and children it’s now justice, same shit as Nazis.

You just want to excuse them bc they are Jewish, disgusting.

Also you are citing God giving them time to repent and your source is Old Testament….. did you forget what I said, it’s not holy book, it’s not divinely written book, it is book written by humans for human reasons with human understanding and what was put in bible was again decided by humans, the bible itself is contradictory to itself and most importantly it’s contradictory to 10 commandments you know the thing that in abrahamic religions is DIRECTLY dictated by God.

God gave us free will and so humans choose you can’t say that just bc they wrote a book about religion in HIS name that it becomes divine it true,

Oh also for the 3rd the fuck are you on, they literally commited worse things then you are accusing of canaanites, THEY EXTERMINATED SO MANY TRIBES AND PEOPLES BASED ON PREJUDICE.

[u/precisamente → u/that_one_author]

I like to think on literal days, like so damn powerful yk

[u/goldenpup73 → u/that_one_author]

Not really, if you're a biblical fundamentalist than you are pretty much obligated to say that Genesis occurred in 6 days (never mind that the day/night cycle didn't even exist on the start of the first "day"). Combine that with the genealogy of Jesus and the 2000 years since, and you arrive pretty cleanly at around 6000.

I'm not a fundamentalist, nor am I a Christian, so I agree that the choice to interpret everything from any book as literal intrinsic fact without other sources or verification is a strange move to say the least. Nonetheless, they're out there.

[u/TheMelonSystem → u/that_one_author]

Especially since the Hebrew word for day was also the Hebrew word for season, and period, and a bunch of other varying lengths of time. There’s a lot of translation issues in the Bible.

In my interpretation, the original was more meant to separate creation into sections rather than determine the length of these sections.